[EM] Cumulative and Limited Voting

[Donald E Davison]

Greetings list,

     In the following letter, Bart Ingles is
 commenting on some text from my web site at:
 http://www.mich.com/~donald/reassign2.html

Donald
  ------------ Forwarded Letter -----------
Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999 23:06:27 -0700
From: Bart Ingles
To: donald at mich.com
Subject: Ladder inconsistency?

Dear Donald,

I notice on your ladder of multi-winner methods, you have Single-vote
and Cumulative Voting separated, with Limited Vote in between.

I recently noticed that Single Vote and Cumulative Voting are logically
equivalent.
For example, if a party believed itself capable of filling three seats
(in an election to fill some larger number of seats), under Cumulative
Voting it would run three candidates (A1, A2, and A3) and tell its
members to divide their votes equally among the three candidates.

Under SNTV, that party's best bet would be to do exactly the same.  The
only difference is that it would have to find another way to get the
members to divide their voting power among the candidates.  A phone tree
or some such would be one way, but an even simpler way to allocate votes
would be to instruct voters to each vote randomly for one of the three.

So under single vote, a voter who receives a recommendation to support
candidates A1, A2, and A3 could roll a die from a board game; if a 1 or
2 is rolled, vote for A1; if 3 or 4, vote for A2; and if 5 or 6, vote
for A3.  This would give exactly the same results as Cumulative Voting
(and is not any simpler).

Limited vote is clearly different, since a party capable of electing
fewer candidates than the voting limit has no way of concentrating its
vote onto the smaller number of candidates.  Larger parties can get
around the limit by coordinated random voting, same as SNTV.  Thus
Limitied Vote is harder on minorities, but suffers from the same
strategy games as Cumulative voting.

If you regard excessive options to be a problem with Cumulative Voting,
maybe the so-called Peoria system would be an improvement.  The voters
would only be encouraged to worry about the number of candidates to vote
for, and not be tempted to divide their votes unequally.  Figuring the
optimal number of candidates to vote for is really the party's problem
anyway; it should only run the number of candidates that it wants its
members to vote for.

Regards,
Bart
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Dear Bart,

     The big flaw of Cumulative Voting is that it puts all the voters into
a Catch 22 position.  The voters need to know the results of an election in
order to plan how to cast their votes in the same election.
     Now the polls before the election are of some help, but cannot be
depended upon, in order for every faction to be able to plan how they are
going to vote.
     If exit polls were allowed to report their results hour by hour on the
radio while the voting booths were still open, that may be of some help to
the later voters.
     But, the best solution is not to use Cumulative Voting.
     An election method should serve at the pleasure of the voters, and the
voters should not be pleased by the gyrations of Cumulative Voting.
     For these reasons, I still place Cumulative Voting lower than Limited
Voting and SNTV.

     I placed Limited Voting ahead of Cumulative Voting because it does not
put the voters into the Catch 22 position.

     I rate SNTV higher because in a small election, SNTV can give results
that are close to STV, not as good, but close.

     I do not know the `so-called Peoria system', so I cannot comment on it.

     I feel that no one or no party should be allowed to limit the number
of candidates. Any member of a party that wishes to run for office should
be free to do so.
     Of course, it follows, that this policy would mean that the lower
methods from Plurality to SNTV are all unacceptable election methods.
     Bottoms UP(Alternative Vote) is the first method on the ladder that
can handle a large number of candidates. Bottoms Up is acceptable, STV is
better.

Regards,
Donald
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Humor:         A Spud Story

    You know that all potatoes have eyes. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Potato had
eyes for each other and they finally got married and had a little one --- a
real SWEET POTATO whom they called "YAM".

    They wanted the best for little Yam, telling her all about the facts of
life. They warned her about going out and getting half baked because she
could get Mashed, get a bad name like Hot Potato, and then end up with a
bunch of Tater Tots. She said not to worry ------ no Mr. McSpud would get
her in the sack and make a Rotten Potato out of her!

    But she wouldn't stay home and become a Couch Potato either. She would
get plenty of food and exercise so as not to be skinny like her Shoestring
cousins. Mr. and Mrs. Potato even told her about going off to Europe and to
watch out for the Hard Boiled guys from Ireland and even the greasy guys
from France called the French Fries. They also said she should watch out
for the Indians when going out west because she could get Scalloped.  She
told them she would stay on the straight and narrow and wouldn't associate
with those high class Blue Belles or the ones from the other side of the
tracks who advertise their trade on all the trucks you see around town that
say Frito Lay.

    Mr. & Mrs. Potato wanted the best for Yam, so they sent her to "Idaho
P.U." * that's Potato University where the Big Potatoes come from and when
she graduated, she' really be in the Chips. But one day she came home and
said she was going to marry Tom Brokaw.(he's a TV anchor)

    Mr. and Mrs. Potato were very upset and said she couldn't marry him
because he's just ...A A A A A A A A A A A A A A - COMMON TATER!!!!!!!!!












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   |                         Q U O T A T I O N                         |
   |  "Democracy is a beautiful thing,                                 |
   |       except that part about letting just any old yokel vote."    |
   |                            - Age 10                               |
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